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This chapter tests the generalizability of the book's argument regarding the effect of decentralization on the electoral strength of regional parties using statistical analysis. The analysis also draws on the CLE dataset. The analysis shows that political decentralization increases the strength of regional parties and that extensive forms of decentralization strengthen regional parties more than limited forms. The analysis also finds that specific features of decentralization strengthen regional parties more than others, such as large regions and nonconcurrent national and regional elections....

This chapter tests the generalizability of the book's argument regarding the effect of decentralization on the electoral strength of regional parties using statistical analysis. The analysis also draws on the CLE dataset. The analysis shows that political decentralization increases the strength of regional parties and that extensive forms of decentralization strengthen regional parties more than limited forms. The analysis also finds that specific features of decentralization strengthen regional parties more than others, such as large regions and nonconcurrent national and regional elections. Fiscal decentralization, in contrast, as well as having a large number of regions, has the opposite effect. The chapter controls for a number of factors typically associated with conflict and secessionism (e.g. ethnolinguistic heterogeneity, democracy, and the executive and electoral system). The chapter also uses instrumental variable regression in this chapter to disentangle the causal relationships between decentralization and regional parties.